[General] Language learning tip: Genders

My advice is to not memorise specifically the word itself and its named gender as two related parts. Rather, learn them together using the gendered article and the noun.  Also, learn them using both the textual representation and the audio, so you'll have double the memory to cue recall.

So, not "Apple is Apfel and it's masculine" but rather "'The apple' is 'der Apfel'".

The reason in part is because if you start learning two gendered languages, like German and French, sometimes the genders are different.

Apple: Apfel (m), pomme (f)

The gender and the word are a bit detached here.  If you can memorise them with their gendered article, though, and get used to the sound of it, it can become much easier to recall it reflexively, with  auditory memory helping.

Apple: der Apfel, la pomme.

In theory, you would not encounter the wrong ones in examples:

Apple: die Apfel, le pomme

Whereas if you remembered it as Apple -> Apfel, m, pomme f, it can be easier to accidentally swap the gender, since they're just generic labels shared by the two languages.

I am using duolingo.com again to review my German and to relearn French.  Mwahaha.